If you want to better understand how the global network works, this book will interest you. If you want to know the implications of the network and how it may answer the world's problems, this book will disappoint you. The supposed point of the book--how the global communications network is the best sustainable technology to address the world's problems--is lost in a mountain of details about how the network operates. Throughout my excruciating experience reading this book, I kept asking, "Why do I need to know this?" I now better understand the path an email takes after I send it. So what? How does this help me understand how to use the global network to address society's problems? I did find useful suggestions for action included at the end of a few of the chapters. But any of the chapters that addressed the supposed premise of the book dealt with issues at a superficial level. I was hoping that this book would provide a thought-provoking read. Instead, I experienced reading this book as a mind-numbing chore.